Halloween’s here! I couldn’t resist buying a pumpkin to carve when I saw it in Aldi for just 99p!! However I had second thoughts and a fabulous idea to put it to more use and make a huge batch of tasty soup. I’d never tried pumpkin soup before so I felt like I just had to make it. I knew I could alter a recipe to make it super easy and quick or even change it to make it more luxurious. Experimenting with food recipes is fun and with soup you really can’t go wrong! In this recipe, I will outline the estimated amounts I used, however I’m not one to follow the rules (I know I should have taken note of the recipe book) and go exact to recipe so I did make a little mistake of putting too much water and not enough stock cubes in…oooops, but hey ho you live and learn from your mistakes. I still ate it all. I would just advise you not to make it too watery and don’t over boil it, you want to keep that pumpkin flavour….mmmmmm.

Serves 8

· 1.5L vegetable stock

· 1 1/2 tsp. salt

· 400g fresh pumpkin, diced

· 3 onion, chopped

· 3 cloves of garlic

· 1tsp black pepper

· chopped chives to taste

1. Chop head and bottom of pumpkin off, sat sturdy upwards on its new flat base that you have cut, using a knife or a potato peeler, slice the skin off the pumpkin. Once you have done your best to slice as much skin off, turn it on its head and slice the skin off you may have left. Chop the pumpkin in half and spoon out the seeds into the bin. Be sure to not spoon too much of the juicy pumpkin away as that adds the delicious flavours. Then dice the pumpkin. It doesn’t really matter what shape as it doesn’t take long to cook and will soon be all blended!

Sorry dad for making a mess of your kitchen.

2. Chop your garlic and onion then make your vegetable stock in a jug, making sure to stir it well, not leaving any lumps of stock. Then place the pumpkin, garlic and onion in a large pan with your vegetable stock.

3. Bring to the boil, reduce heat to low, and simmer for 30 minutes uncovered.

4.Add all your seasoning, and puree with a hand blender. Taste and check to see if more seasoning needs to be added.

5. Garnish with a sprinkle of black pepper and serve with a fresh baguette or burger buns as I did. That’s all they had at my corner shop…but they were very fluffy and absorbed the soup well….lovely combination!